Rating: K+

9: Jawline Kiss

The first thing he saw after after the world faded back into color — after he'd gotten up and looked around, after the crowd of people with him also came to its senses and began to disperse — was Ladybug frantically scanning the area for someone, heedless of the way her timer was ticking down to zero.

"Ladybug!" he shouted over the distance.

He went ignored or unheard, and he picked up the pace, a panicked pressure building in his chest. For Ladybug to be that worried even after a Lucky Charm…

He ran faster, weaving between the stragglers.

"Chat? Chat!" he heard her call, a terrifying waver edging her voice.

"I'm here!" he called back, hand going to his staff to prepare for whatever had Ladybug — invincible Ladybug, unshakeable Ladybug — so distressed. "What's wrong?"

"Chat!"

"Ladybug, I'm here," he repeated, leaping to her side with half an eye on their surroundings and half an eye on her. He knew there was something wrong, but he couldn't see any evidence of it other than Ladybug's reaction, so watching her was his best bet to be prepared.

She whirled on him.

He had a few seconds to register the tears filming her eyes, the tremble of her jaw as her mouth dropped open, the unfamiliar shock in her countenance. He had a few seconds to think oh no no no no.

Then she rushed him.

Slender, strong arms clamped vice-tight around his ribcage, her cheek pressed against his neck, and she shuddered in what felt horribly like a sob.

"I thought—" she choked out against his collar, breath damp-sticky-hot against his skin. His arms wrapped around her almost of their own volition. "I thought you'd—"

Her explanation broke off in another, louder sob, and something in Chat's chest burst.

She thought she'd lost him. She was clinging to him, pressed close to his body from her ankles to her cheek, falling apart because she thought she'd lost him.

The invincible Ladybug was cracking, shaken to the bone, to the core, because she thought she'd lost him.

"Hey," he murmured, cradling her close, voice rough with emotions too numerous and intense to name. "I'm here. I'm okay."

She sobbed again, a tiny, hitching thing that she muffled against his jaw, pressing her lips indiscriminately against the vulnerable flesh below the bone. As she turned her head her mask brushed against his skin, leaving it damp in her wake.

Chat's heart lurched.

"I'm okay," he repeated, softer, as he let her run her hands over his body, let her test his corporeality and his condition, let her make sure that he was truly all right with her own senses.

"Dumb cat," she croaked, nudging her nose up so she could give his jaw a proper kiss.

His nerves sparked, goosebumps pebbling his skin from head to toe, but the response sputtered out as her mask continued to streak dampness on his skin.

Her Miraculous beeped.

"Your time—" he began, chest aching. He didn't want to let her go, didn't want her to let him go, not when she was in this state.

She ignored him.

"Don't you ever do that again," she whispered fiercely, the intensity vanishing like smoke on a tiny, added, "Please." Chat's heart broke all over again.

"I won't," he promised. "But your Miraculous…"

Her arms tightened.

"Just a little longer," she begged, begged, and Chat was powerless to say no.

"Of course," he sighed, burying his face in her hair.

They stood there like that, wrapped in each other's embrace, until her Miraculous gave its last warning beeps.

"Ladybug…" There were half a million things he wanted to say, needed to say, but the only one that came to mind was 'I love you.' And Ladybug had made her feelings on that matter perfectly clear.

She didn't move.

"Ladybug, your time," he tried one last time.

The thin body against his breathed in, and breathed out, arms still clamped tight around his torso.

Then, there was no more time. Chat slammed his eyes shut against the pink light reflecting against the ground behind her.

There was a girl in his arms. A girl who both was Ladybug and wasn't. A girl who ate and slept and laughed and dreamed in spaces he couldn't touch. A girl who wore soft, civilian clothing and who smelled like a bakery's worth of sweets, of flowery perfume and tears.

There was a girl in his arms who meant the world to him, who meant the stars and the moon and galaxies upon galaxies to him.

There was a girl in his arms that he didn't know, but there was also a girl that he did know. There was a girl in his arms that he desperately wanted to know.

There was a girl in his arms who didn't want him to know her.

He kept his eyes shut.

It felt like minutes or hours or maybe just fractions of a second that she stood still, holding him like she didn't want him to leave her, before she let go and stepped back.

His eyelids fluttered as he fought to keep them down.

"So, now you—..."

He heard her breath catch in a little gasp, and had to fight even harder to refrain from looking for what had startled her.

"C-Chat?"

"Yeah?"

"Y-you…" There was a strange little noise in her voice, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and he balled his fists at his sides to keep from reaching for her. "You… You are…"

She fell silent. A little rustle of hair or clothing floated up to his ears, like she was shaking her head.

"You are the best partner I could ever ask for."

She'd fallen apart at the thought of losing him, and the revelation was still fresh in his heart when the words left her lips. The effect was devastating, his throat snapping shut, heart stammering and leaping into his mouth.

Before he could recover, she exhaled a little laugh and shook her head again. "No, you're the best friend I could ever ask for."

Soft, delicate, bare hands came up to cradle his cheeks. Bare thumbs stroked the corners of his eyes over his mask.

"Oh, Chat," she whispered, low and soft and intimate and ragged and so much closer than she had last been. "I don't know what I did to deserve you, but I thank my lucky stars for it every single night."

He'd long since stopped breathing, and it helped him feel the way her own breath washed over his face as she leaned in and pressed her forehead to his. Maskless against his mask. Bare against his armor.

"Thank you," she whispered, so heartfelt that his own heart ground to a halt. She stepped back.

He heard her shoes scrape against the cobblestone as she turned, then the soft padding as she walked away. He waited until her footsteps had faded into silence around the corner of a building. Then he waited a bit longer, just to make sure she wasn't coming back.

Then — and only then — did he open his eyes.

Blinking the odd afterimages out of his vision, he looked towards the route the girl had taken, holding his heart in her bare hands as she'd left.

He could track her, he thought. It wouldn't even be difficult: that road didn't go many places. He could find her, know her, get closer to her like he'd craved since the day they met.

He wouldn't, but he could.

His quickest route home was that way.

Laughing a little at himself (you're the best friend I could ever ask for) he turned in the opposite direction, leaping for the rooftops.